Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
Ahead of the February 16 presidential election, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has alleged there is a plot by the All Progressives Congress ( APC), and its leaders, to derail the country’s democracy.
PDP National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, stated this in an interview with Daily Sun, yesterday night, in reaction to claims by the APC National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, that the opposition party is misleading the international community with lies.
Ologbondiyan, who is also the director of Media and Publicity, PDP Presidential Campaign Organisation, stated that global democratic institutions have taken it upon themselves to ensure that the presidential poll is free, fair and credible.
“We don’t have anything to tell Oshiomhole than to advice him to clear his name by allowing the EFCC investigate and prosecute him over malfeasance, bordering on corruption. That is what we have to tell Oshiomhole.
“But, I can assure you, and strongly, too, that members of global democratic institutions have taken upon themselves is to ensure that we have an election that be adjudged to be free, fair, credible and transparent. Every effort by the APC and its leadership to undermine our democracy will not survive,” he reiterated.
Ologbondiyan urged El-Rufai to channel his frustration to President Muhammadu Buhari and noted that the governor’s “threat, to members of global democratic institutions, working towards peaceful 2019 general election in our country would return in bodybags,” if they interfere with the polls, has raised new questions about those behind the killing of expatriates and aid workers in some parts of the country. The PDP said it was revealing that El-Rufai, who, in 2010, described president Buhari as “unelectable,” is now issuing death threats to others, just to secure his place under a “dictatorial administration. Governor El-Rufai described Buhari as ill- equipped for modern day governance. He described Buhari as lacking capacity to comprehend current trends, to the extent that he would think that a “blackberry was a fruit.”
Similarly, a spokesman of the PDP campaign organisation, Kassim Afegbua, alleged that El-Rufai is driven by desperation, hence, his resort to careless utterances.
Afegbua told Daily Sun that “a man who has shown to the whole world symptoms of being a killer, who has threatened foreigners of bodybags, cannot possibly be talking about PDP losing election. Not at all.
“Only desperation and psychological dysfunctionality can drive a man, in an executive position, to be so reckless with utterances. It shows the diminishing returns of a government that promised change but now faced with being changed by Nigerians who have entered a referendum to vote the APC out of incompetent leadership.
“El Rufai has exposed himself to be a warmonger and probably, a promoter of all the heinous crimes and violence in Kaduna state.
“His utterances do not only demean the office he represents, but a pointer to the psychological effect of a defeat that stares them in the face. It’s like the last ferocious kick of a dying horse. It is obvious that Nigerians will usher in a new leadership on the February 16, in the person of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar; to get our country working again. We cannot continue to tolerate and endure this incompetence again; in an era when leadership should be proactive and result-driven.
“It’s like telling Nigerians to take up arms against foreigners and observers and that should not be in the interest of Nigeria…
“We have gone out of the country to participate as observers in other countries; so, they should not be treated with the violence as alleed by the governor.”